Statement top with Sharpie Fabric Markers

Remember that time I tried to make a cool "statement" t-shirt using Sharpies and all the ink ran in the dryer, so it was kind of a DIY fail? Yeah? Me too. Well, my dear friend Renea came to my rescue and bought me these wonderful Sharpie Fabric Markers. (She found them at Wal-Mart, but I guess my local Wal-Mart didn't get the memo, because I could not find them there.)

So, I found an old tank top in need of some updating, and went to work. First, I had to find a good phrase for the t-shirt. I think that's the hardest part. Inspired by the pajama-like nature of the worn-out top I planned to paint on and the Bob Dylan quotes that play through my head constantly, I decided to go with a quote from "Subterranean Homesick Blues:" "Get Dressed, Get Dressed." ("Try to be a success...") I printed my quote in the size I wanted it, and used an exacto-knife to cut out the quote.

It turns out that it's harder to use an exacto knife than I had previously imagined. I settled instead for cutting out the general parameters of the font, then I traced over it with my fabric pen in a nice, bright blue, hoping to get a faint outline that I could paint over. This worked in some places, but in others, I ended up mostly free-handing.

I enjoyed the feel of the Sharpie Fabric pens. They are a little runnier than regular Sharpies -- the consistency and handling is more like a cross between the liquid eyeliner in a brush form and liquid eyeliner in a pen form. Also, as you can see from the photo, the fabric on this shirt had tiny ribbing. This made writing in a fine print difficult. If you decide to do this, you should definitely look for a shirt with smoother fabric. I'm still pretty happy with the results, though.

And the most important part, of course, is that after washing it in cold water per the package instructions and running it through the dryer, my text stayed firmly in place, and I had a much snazzier shirt for lounging around in.

For more fun coloring on fabric, check out my last statement t-shirt and my fun polka-cats bag.